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Midway Games
Midway Games, Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing) was an American video game developer and publisher originally founded in 1958, based in Chicago, Illinois. The company been defunct since 2010 after filing for bankruptcy in early 2009. __TOC__ Bio Founded in 1958 as an amusement game manufacturer, it became a video game publisher and developer in 1973. Midway was purchased and re-incorporated in 1988 by WMS Industries Inc. In 1998, it became an independent public company. The company began in the arcade game business, scoring its first hit with the U.S. distribution of Space Invaders in 1978 and is perhaps infamous for the creation of the Mortal Kombat franchise. After many years as a leader in the arcade segment, Midway moved into the growing home video game market beginning in 1996, the same year that it made its initial public offering of stock. Midway was listed as the #19 video game publisher in September 2005 and the #20 in September 2006 by the magazine Game Developer. After 2000, although Midway continued to develop and publish video games for each new generation of home and handheld video game machines, Midway experienced annual net losses. In response, the company engaged in a series of stock and debt offerings and other financings and borrowings. Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom/CBS Corporation, was a large investor in the company since the 1990s. He increased his stake in Midway from about 15%, in 1998, to about 87% of Midway by the end of 2007. In December 2008, Redstone sold all his stock to Mark Thomas, a private investor, for $100,000, and Midway extended $70 million of new loans to Thomas. In February 2009, Midway Games filed in Delaware for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In July 2009, Warner Bros. purchased most of Midway's assets for $33 million plus receivables, realizing about $49 million from the transaction. At the same time, Midway settled with its former majority owner, Mark Thomas, to relinquish his common stock in Midway, which continued to operate as a Debtor in Possession. The Midway Chicago studio became part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and has been rebranded NetherRealm Studios. In July and August 2009, Midway shed its remaining U.S. and European studios. In October 2009, the U.S. District Court in Chicago dismissed a lawsuit against former officers of Midway alleging that they had misled shareholders while selling their own stock. In January 2010, the bankruptcy court dismissed claims against Redstone in connection with his sale of the company to Thomas. In February 2010, Midway filed a proposed plan of liquidation with the bankruptcy court, which the court approved in May 2010. Secured claims were paid, and unsecured creditors will share a total of about $34.7 million. On June 9, 2010, the company filed a Form 15 with the Securities and Exchange Commission terminating the public registration of its securities. The creditors' settlement of their lawsuit against Redstone's company, National Amusements, in the amount of $1 million was approved by the Bankruptcy court in June 2010. Involvement with the Unreal series Midway published Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict and the original release of Unreal Tournament 3, as well as the Unreal Anthology compilation. It was because of this that Raiden is a playable guest character in UC2. Works Unreal series * Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict - (2005) - Publisher * Unreal Tournament 3 - (2007) - Publisher Other games Trivia External links and references See also * Midway @ Wikipedia.